Cabbage Pitch

Eating cabbage could reduce a woman's risk of breast cancer. Epidemiologist Dorothy Rybaczyk Pathak noted that women in Poland consume three times more cabbage than Americans and have breast cancer rates that are one-third lower. In a study she led at Michigan State University, Polish immigrants who reported eating more than three servings of raw cabbage per week were up to 70 percent less likely to develop the disease than those who ate less than 1 1/2 servings per week. Pathak says metabolized compounds in raw cabbage have anticancer properties. Though eating cabbage in adolescence offered the greatest benefit, she says, "consuming it as an adult can reduce risk significantly."